"But wait a minute. Two weeks ago, the United States assassinated one of
its enemies in Yemen, on Yemeni soil. If the U.S. believes it
has the right to assassinate enemies like Anwar Awlaki anywhere in the world in
the name of a "war on terror" that has no geographical limitation, how can it
then argue that other nations don't have a similar right to track down their
enemies and kill them wherever they're found?
PS Notice how timid the US press is in criticizing the government: notice that with every criticism there is a qualification and defense of US actions embedded.
It's true that the assassination of Awlaki was carried out with the
cooperation of the government of Yemen. That makes a difference. But would the
U.S. have hesitated to kill him if Yemen had not approved? Remember: There was
no cooperation from the Pakistani government when Osama bin Laden was killed in
May.
It's also true that there's a big difference between an Al Qaeda
operative who, according to U.S. officials, had been deeply involved in planning
terrorist activities, and a duly credited ambassador of a sovereign country.
Still, the fact remains that all nations ought to think long and hard before
gunning down their enemies in other countries.
As the United States continues down the path of state-sponsored
assassination far from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, all sorts of
tricky moral questions are likely to arise. But this much is clear: The world is
unlikely to accept that the United States has a right to behave as it wishes
without accountability all around the globe and that other nations do not."
